£9  3d 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


c 


s~ 

THE 


C      . 


DISCOVERY 


COLONIZATION  OF  AMERICA, 


IMMIGRATION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATI-:s. 


A    LECTCKI     DM  I\-|-];M'    Klli'l.l     Mil     M  -  \V    V«i):K    |![^TI>|:II  At.    MICD.IV,    IN 
MKI  •Knl'ul.lrAN    II  VI. I.,    «'N    Till.    1  -  T    cl      .11    M. 


EDWARD     KVKRETT. 


BOSTON: 

LITTLE,    BROWX,    AND    COMPANY. 

1  8  5  3  . 


THK 


DISCOVERY 


COLONIZATION  OF  AMERICA, 


IMMIGRATION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


A  LECTURE  DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE  NEW  YORK  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,   IX 
METROPOLITAN  HALL,  ON  THK  1ST  OF  JUNE,    1863. . 


EDWARD    EVERETT. 


BOSTON: 

LITTLE,    BROWN,    AND    COMPANY. 

1853. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1853,  by 

LITTLE,  BROWS,   &  Co., 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
XETCALF  AND  COJIPAXY.  STEREOTTPKRS  AND  PRINTERS. 


LECTURE. 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  :  — 

ALTHOUGH  I  appear  before  you  at  the  season  at  which  the 
various  religious,  moral,  and  philanthropic  societies  usually 
hold  their  annual  meetings  to  discuss  the  stirring  and  contro- 
^      verted  topics  of  the  day,  I  need  not  say  to  you  that  the  pro- 
uj      prieties  of  this  occasion  require  me  to  abstain  from  such  sub- 
>_      jects ;  and  to  select  a  theme  falling,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
within  the  province  of  an  historical  society.     I  propose,  ac- 
cordingly, this  evening,  to  attempt  a  sketch  of  the  history  of 
the  discovery  and  colonization  of  America  and  of  immigration 
to  the  United  States.     I  can  of  course  offer  you,  within  the 
:»       limits  of  a  single  address,  but  a  most  superficial  view  of  so 
w      vast  a  subject ;  but  I  have  thought  that  even  a  sketch  of  a 
%      subject,  which  concerns  us  so  directly  and  in  so  many  ways, 
would  suggest  important  trains  of  reflection   to   thoughtful 
minds.     Words  written  or  spoken  are  at  best  but  a  kind  of 
o      short-hand,  to  be  filled  up  by  the  reader  or  hearer.     I  shall  be 
•<•      gratified  if,  after  honoring  my  hasty  sketch  with  your  kind 
'j      attention,  you  shall  deem  it  worth  filling  up  from  your  own 
! !      stores  of  knowledge  and  thought.     You  will  forgive  me,  if,  in 
the  attempt  to  give  a  certain  completeness  to  the  narrative,  I 
shall  be  led  to  glance  at  a  few  facts,  which,  however  inter- 
esting, may  seem  to  you  too  familiar  for  repetition. 

In  the  last  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  an  Italian  mari- 


453441 


ner,  a  citizen  of  the  little  republic  of  Genoa,  who  had  hitherto 
gained  his  livelihood  as  a  pilot  in  the  commercial  marine  of 
different  countries,  made  his  appearance  successively  at  vari- 
ous courts  in  the  South  and  West  of  Europe,  soliciting  patron- 
age and  aid  for  a  bold  and  novel  project  in  navigation.  The 
state  of  the  times  was  in  some  degree  favorable  to  the  adven- 
ture. The  Portuguese  had  for  half  a  century  been  pushing 
their  discoveries  southward  upon  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  they 
had  ventured  into  the  Atlantic  as  far  as  the  Azores.  Several 
conspiring  causes,  and  especially  the  invention  of  the  art  of 
printing,  had  produced  a  general  revival  of  intelligence.  Still, 
however,  the  state  of  things  in  this  respect  was  at  that  time 
very  different  from  what  we  witness  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  On  the  part  of  the  great  mass  of  mankind, 
there  was  but  little  improvement  over  the  darkness  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  new  culture  centred  in  the  convent,  the 
court,  and  the  university,  places  essentially  distrustful  of  bold 
novelties. 

The  idea  of  reaching  the  East  by  a  voyage  around  the  Af- 
rican continent  had  begun  to  assume  consistency ;  but  the 
vastly  more  significant  idea,  that  the  earth  is  a  globe  and  ca- 
pable of  being  circumnavigated,  had  by  no  means  become 
incorporated  into  the  general  intelligence  of  the  age.  The 
Portuguese  navigators  felt  themselves  safe  as  they  crept  along 
the  African  coast,  venturing  each  voyage  a  few  leagues  far- 
ther, doubling  a  new  headland,  ascending  some  before  unex- 
plored river,  holding  a  palaver  with  some  new  tribe  of  the  na- 
tive races.  But  to  turn  the  prows  of  their  vessels  boldly  to  the 
west,  to  embark  upon  an  ocean,  not  believed,  in  the  popular 
geography  of  the  day,  to  have  an  outer  shore,  to  pass  that 
bourne  from  which  no  traveller  had  ever  returned,  and  from 
which  experience  had  not  taught  that  any  traveller  could  re- 
turn, and  thus  to  reach  the  East  by  sailing  in  a  western  direc- 
tion.—  this  was  a  conception  which  no  human  being  is  known 
to  have  formed  before  Columbus,  and  which  he  proposed  to 
the  governments  of  Italy,  of  Spain,  of  Portugal,  and  for  a 


"long  time  without  success.  The  state  of  science  was  not 
such  as  to  enable  men  to  discriminate  between  the  improba- 
ble and  untried  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  impossible  and  ab- 
surd on  the  other.  They  looked  upon  Columbus  as  we  did 
thirty  years  ago  upon  Captain  Syrnmes. 

But  the  illustrious  adventurer  persevered.  Sorrow  and  dis- 
appointment clouded  his  spirits,  but  did  not  shake  his  faith  nor 
subdue  his  will.  His  well-instructed  imagination  had  taken 
firm  hold  of  the  idea  that  the  earth  is  a  sphere.  What 
seemed  to  the  multitude  even  of  the  educated  of  that  day  a 
doubtful  and  somewhat  mystical  theory ;  what  appeared  to 
the  uninformed  mass  a  monstrous  paradox,  contradicted  by 
every  step  we  take  upon  the  broad,  flat  earth  which  we  daily 
tread  beneath  our  feet;  — that  great  and  fruitful  truth  revealed 
itself  to  the  serene  intelligence  of  Columbus  as  a  practical 
fact,  on  which  he  was  willing  to  stake  all  he  had,  —  character 
and  life.  And  it  deserves  ever  to  be  borne  in  mind,  as  the 
most  illustrious  example  of  the  connection  of  scientific  theory 
with  great  practical  results,  that  the  discovery  of  America, 
with  all  its  momentous  consequences  to  mankind,  is  owing 
to  the  distinct  conception  in  the  mind  of  Columbus  of  this 
single  scientific  proposition,  —  the  terraqueous  earth  is  a 
sphere. 

After  years  of  fruitless  and  heart-sick  solicitation,  after  offer- 
ing in  effect  to  this  monarch  and  to  that  monarch  the  gift  of 
a  hemisphere,  the  great  discoverer  touches  upon  a  partial  suc- 
cess. He  succeeds,  not  in  enlisting  the  sympathy  of  his  coun- 
trymen at  Genoa  and  Venice  for  a  brave  brother  sailor;  not 
in  giving  a  new  direction  to  the  spirit  of  maritime  adventure 
which  had  so  long  prevailed  in  Portugal ;  not  in  stimulating 
the  commercial  thrift  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  or  the  pious 
ambition  of  the  Catholic  King.  His  sorrowful  perseverance 
touched  the  heart  of  a  noble  princess,  —  worthy  the  throne 
which  she  adorned.  The  New  World,  which  was  just  es- 
caping the  subtle  kingcraft  of  Ferdinand,  was  saved  to  Spain 
by  the  womanly  compassion  of  Isabella. 


It  is  truly  melancholy,  however,  to  contemplate  the 
wretched  equipment,  for  which  the  most  powerful  princess  in 
Christendom  was  ready  to  pledge  her  jewels.  Floating  cas- 
tles will  soon  be  fitted  out  to  convey  the  miserable  natives  of 
Africa  to  the  golden  shores  of  America,  and  towering  galleons 
will  be  despatched  to  bring  home  the  guilty  treasures  to 
Spain ;  but  three  small  vessels,  two  of  which  were  without  a 
deck,  and  neither  of  them  probably  exceeding  the  capacity  of 
a  pilot-boat,  and  even  these  impressed  into  the  public  service, 
compose  the  expedition,  fitted  out  under  royal  patronage,  to 
realize  that  magnificent  conception  in  which  the  creative  mind 
of  Columbus  had  planted  the  germs  of  a  new  world. 

No  chapter  of  romance  equals  the  interest  of  this  expedi- 
tion. The  most  fascinating  of  the  works  of  fiction  which 
have  issued  from  the  modern  press  have,  to  my  taste,  no  at- 
traction compared  with  the  pages  in  which  the  first  voyage  of 
Columbus  is  described  by  Robertson,  and  especially  by  our 
own  Irving  and  Prescott,  the  last  two  enjoying  the  advantage 
over  the  great  Scottish  historian  of  possessing  the  lately  dis- 
covered journals  and  letters  of  Columbus  himself.  The  de- 
parture from  Palos,  where  a  few  years  before  he  had  begged 
a  morsel  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  water  for  his  way-worn  child  ; 
his  final  farewell  to  the  Old  World  at  the  Canaries ;  his  en- 
trance upon  the  trade-winds,  which  then,  for  the  first  time, 
filled  a  European  sail ;  the  portentous  variation  of  the  needle, 
never  before  observed ;  the  fearful  course  westward  and  west- 
ward, day  after  day  and  night  after  night,  over  the  unknown 
ocean  ;  the  mutinous  and  ill-appeased  crew ; —  at  length,  when 
hope  had  turned  to  despair  in  every  heart  but  one,  the  tokens 
of  land  ;  the  cloud-banks  on  the  western  horizon  ;  the  logs  of 
drift-wood ;  the  fresh  shrub  floating  with  its  leaves  and  berries  ; 
the  flocks  of  land-birds ;  the  shoals  of  fish  that  inhabit  shallow 
water;  the  indescribable  smell  of  the  shore  ;  the  mysterious  pre- 
sentiment that  ever  goes  before  a  great  event ; —  and,  finally, 
on  that  ever  memorable  night  of  the  12th  of  October,  1492,  the 
moving  light  seen  by  the  sleepless  eye  of  the  great  discoverer 


himself  from  the  deck  of  the  Santa  Maria,  and  in  the  morn- 
ing the  real,  undoubted  land,  swelling  up  from  the  bosom  of 
the  deep,  with  its  plains,  and  hills,  and  forests,  and  rocks,  and 
streams,  and  strange,  new  races  of  men  ;  —  these  are  incidents 
in  which  the  authentic  history  of  the  discovery  of  our  conti- 
nent excels  the  specious  wonders  of  romance,  as  much  as 
gold  excels  tinsel,  or  the  sun  in  the  heavens  outshines  that 
flickering  taper. 

But  it  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  dwell  upon  this  inter- 
esting narrative,  or  to  follow  out  this  most  wonderful  of  histo- 
ries, sinking  as  it  soon  did  into  a  tale  of  sorrow  for  Columbus 
himself,  and  before  long  ending  in  one  of  the  most  frightful 
tragedies  in  the  annals  of  the  world.  Such  seems  to  be  the 
law  of  humanity,  that  events  the  most  desirable  and  achieve- 
ments the  most  important  should,  either  in  their  inception  or 
progress,  be  mixed  up  with  disasters,  crimes,  and  sorrows 
which  it  makes  the  heart  sick  to  record. 

The  discovery  of  America,  I  need  hardly  say,  produced  a 
vast  extension  of  the  territory  of  the  power  under  whose  au- 
spices the  discovery  was  made.  In  contemplating  this  point, 
we  encounter  one  of  the  most  terrible  mysteries  in  the 
history  of  our  race.  "  Extension  of  territory!  "  you  are  ready 
to  exclaim ;  "  how  could  Spain  acquire  any  territory  by  the 
fact  that  a  navigator,  sailing  under  her  patronage,  had  landed 
upon  one  or  two  islands  near  the  continent  of  America,  and 
coasted  for  a  few  hundred  miles  along  its  shores?  These 
shores  and  islands  are  not  a  desert  on  which  Columbus,  like  a 
Robinson  Crusoe  of  a  higher  order,  has  landed  and  taken  pos- 
session. They  are  occupied  and  settled,  —  crowded,  even,  with 
inhabitants,  —  subject  to  the  government  of  their  native  chiefs ; 
and  neither  by  inheritance,  colonization,  nor  as  yet  by  con- 
quest, has  any  human  being  in  Europe  a  right  to  rule  over 
them  or  to  possess  a  square  foot  of  their  territory."  Such  are 
the  facts  of  the  case,  and  such,  one  would  say,  ought  to  be 
the  law  and  equity  of  the  case.  But  alas  for  the  native  chiefs 
and  the  native  races !  Before  he  sailed  from  Spain,  Colum- 


8 

bus  was  furnished  with  a  piece  of  parchment  a  foot  and  a 
half  square,  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  creating  him  their 
Viceroy  and  High- Admiral  in  all  the  seas,  islands,  and  con- 
tinents which  he  should  discover,  his  heirs  for  ever  to  enjoy 
the  same  offices.  The  Viceroy  of  the  absolute  monarchs  of 
Aragon  and  Castile ! 

Thus  was  America  conquered  before  it  was  discovered. 
By  the  law  of  nations  as  then  understood,  (and  I  fear  there  is 
less  change  in  its  doctrines  at  the  present  day  than  we  should 
be  ready  to  think,)  a  sovereign  right  to  the  territory  and  gov- 
ernment of  all  newly  discovered  regions  inhabited  by  heathen 
tribes  was  believed  to  vest  in  the  Christian  prince  under  whose 
auspices  the  discovery  was  made,  subject  to  the  ratification 
of  the  Pope,  as  the  ultimate  disposer  of  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth.  Such  was  the  law  of  nations,  as  then  understood,  in 
virtue  of  which,  from  the  moment  Columbus,  on  that  memora- 
ble night  to  which  I  have  alluded,  caught,  from  the  quarter- 
deck of  the  Santa  Maria,  the  twinkling  beams  of  a  taper  from 
the  shores  of  San  Salvador,  all  the  territorial  and  political 
rights  of  its  simple  inhabitants  were  extinguished  for  ever. 
When  on  the  following  morning  the  keel  of  his  vessel  grated 
upon  the  much  longed  for  strand,  it  completed,  with  more  than 
electric  speed,  that  terrible  circuit  which  connected  the  isl- 
ands and  the  continent  to  the  footstool  of  the  Spanish  throne. 
As  he  landed  upon  the  virgin  shore,  its  native  inhabitants, 
could  they  have  foreseen  the  future,  would  have  felt,  if  I  may 
presume  thus  to  apply  the  words,  that  virtue  had  gone  out  of 
it  for  ever.  With  some  of  them  the  process  was  sharp  and 
instantaneous,  with  others  more  gradual,  but  not  less  sure ; 
with  some,  even  after  nearly  four  centuries,  it  is  still  going  on  ; 
but  with  all  it  was  an  irrevocable  doom.  The  wild  and  war- 
like, the  indolent  and  semi-civilized,  the  bloody  Aztec,  the  in- 
offensive Peruvian,  the  fierce  Araucanian,  —  all  fared  alike; 
a  foreign  rule  and  an  iron  yoke  settled  or  is  settling  down 
upon  their  necks  for  ever. 

Such  was  the  law  of  nations  of  that  day,  not  enacted,  how- 


9 

ever,  by  Spain.  It  was  in  reality  the  old  principle  of  the 
right  of  the  strongest,  disguised  by  a  pretext ;  a  colossal  iron 
falsehood  gilded  over  with  the  thin  foil  of  a  seeming  truth. 
It  was  the  same  principle  which  prompted  the  eternal  wars 
of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  Aristotle  asserts,  without  quali- 
fication, that  the  Greeks  had  a  perpetual  right  of  war  and  con- 
quest against  the  barbarians,  —  that  is,  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  ;  and  the  pupil  of  Aristotle  proclaimed  this  doctrine  at 
the  head  of  the  Macedonian  phalanx  on  the  banks  of  the  In- 
dus. The  irruption  of  the  barbarous  races  into  Europe,  dur- 
ing the  centuries  that  preceded  and  followed  Christianity, 
rested  on  as  good  a  principle,  —  rather  better,  —  the  pretext 
only  was  varied  ;  although  the  Gauls  and  Goths  did  not  prob- 
ably trouble  themselves  much  about  pretexts.  They  adopted 
rather  the  simple  philosophy  of  the  robber  chieftain  of  the 
Scottish  Highlands :  — 

"  Pent  in  this  fortress  of  the  North, 
Think'st  thon  we  will  not  sally  forth, 
To  spoil  the  spoiler  as  we  may, 
And  from  the  robber  rend  the  prey  ?  " 

When  the  Mohammedan  races  rose  to  power,  they  claimed 
dominion  over  all  who  disbelieved  the  Koran.  Conversion  or 
extermination  was  the  alternative  which  they  offered  to  the 
world,  and  which  was  announced  in  letters  of  fire  and  blood 
from  Spain  to  the  Ganges.  The  states  of  Christian  Europe 
did  but  retort  the  principle  and  the  practice,  when,  in  a  series 
of  crusades,  kept  up  for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  they 
poured  desolation  over  the  West  of  Asia,  in  order  to  rescue 
the  sepulchre  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  from  the  possession  of 
unbelievers. 

Such  were  the  principles  of  the  public  law  and  the  practice 
under  them,  as  they  existed  when  the  great  discoveries  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  took  place.  When  the  Por- 
tuguese began  to  push  their  adventures  far  to  the  south  on 
the  coast  of  Africa,  in  order  to  give  to  those  principles  the 
highest  sanction,  they  procured  of  Pope  Nicholas  the  Fifth,  in 
2 


10 

1454,  the  grant  of  the  right  of  sovereignty  over  all  the  heathen 
tribes,  nations,  and  countries  discovered  or  to  be  discovered 
by  them,  from  Africa  to  India,  and  the  exclusive  title  thus 
conferred  was  recognized  by  all  the  other  nations  of  Chris- 
tendom. 

On  the  return  of  Columbus  from  his  first  voyage,  the  king 
of  Spain,  not  to  fall  behind  his  neighbors  in  the  strength  of 
his  title,  lost  no  time  in  obtaining  from  Pope  Alexander  the 
Sixth  a  similar  grant  of  all  the  heathen  lands  discovered  by 
Columbus,  or  which  might  hereafter  be  discovered,  in  the  west. 
To  preclude  as  far  as  possible  all  conflict  with  Portugal,  the 
famous  line  of  demarcation  was  projected  from  the  north  to 
the  south,  a  hundred  leagues  west  of  the  Azores,  cutting  the 
earth  into  halves,  like  an  apple,  and,  as  far  as  the  new  dis- 
coveries were  concerned,  giving  to  the  Spaniards  all  west  of 
the  line,  and  confirming  all  east  of  it  to  the  Portuguese,  in 
virtue  of  the  grant  already  mentioned  of  Pope  Nicholas  the 
Fifth. 

I  regret  that  want  of  time  will  not  allow  me  to  dwell  upon 
the  curious  history  of  this  line  of  demarcation,  for  the  benefit 
of  all  states  having  boundary  controversies,  and  especially 
our  sister  republics  of  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica.  It  is  suf- 
ficient to  say,  that,  having  had  its  origin  in  the  papal  bull  just 
referred  to  of  1454,  it  remained  a  subject  of  dispute  and  col- 
lision for  three  hundred  and  sixty-one  years,  and  was  finally 
settled  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  in  1815  ! 

The  territorial  extension  of  Portugal  and  Spain,  which  re- 
sulted from  the  discovery  of  America,  was  followed  by  the 
most  extraordinary  effects  upon  the  commerce,  the  finances, 
and  the  politics  generally,  of  those  two  countries,  and  through 
them  of  the  world.  The  over-land  trade  to  the  East,  the  great 
commercial  interest  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  abandoned. 
The  whole  of  South  America,  and  a  considerable  part  of  North 
America,  were,  in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century,  settled 
by  those  governments  ;  who  organized  in  their  Transatlantic 
possessions  a  colonial  system  of  the  most  rigid  and  despotic 


11 

character,  reflecting  as  far  as  was  practicable  in  distant  prov- 
inces beyond  the  sea  the  stern  features  of  the  mother  coun- 
try. The  precious  metals,  and  a  monopoly  of  the  trade  to  the 
East,  were  the  great  objects  to  be  secured.  Aliens  were  for- 
bidden to  enter  the  American  viceroyalties  ;  none  but  a  con- 
traband trade  was  carried  on  by  foreigners  at.  the  seaports. 
To  prevent  this  trade,  a  severe  right  of  search  was  instituted 
along  the  entire  extent  of  the  coasts,  on  either  ocean.  I  have 
recently  had  an  opportunity,  in  another  place,  to  advert  to  the 
effects  of  this  system  upon  the  international  relations  of  Eu- 
rope.* V1\ative  subjects  could  emigrate  to  these  vast  colonial 
possessions  only  with  the  permission  of  the  government. 
Liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  press  was  unknown.  Instead 
of  affording  an  asylum  to  persons  dissenting  from  the  religion 
of  the  state,  conformity  of  belief  was,  if  possible,  enforced 
more  rigidly  in  the  colonies  than  in  the  mother  country.  No 
relaxation  in  this  respect  has,  I  believe,  taken  place  in  the 
remaining  colonies  of  Spain  even  to  the  present  day.  As  for 
the  aboriginal  tribes,  after  the  first  work  of  extermination  was 
over,  a  remnant  was  saved  from  destruction  by  being  reduced 
to  a  state  of  predial  servitude.  The  dejected  and  spiritless 
posterity  of  the  warlike  tribes  that  offered  no  mean  resistance 
to  Cortes  and  Pizarro,  are  now  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the 
drawers  of  water  to  Mexico  and  Peru.  In  a  word,  from  the 
extreme  southern  point  of  Patagonia  to  the  northernmost  limit 
of  New  Mexico,  I  am  not  aware  that  any  thing  hopeful  was 
done  for  human  improvement  by  either  of  the  European 
crowns  which  added  these  vast  domains  to  their  territories. 

If  this  great  territorial  extension  was  fruitless  of  beneficial 
consequences  to  America,  it  was  not  less  so  to  the  mother 
countries.  For  Spain  it  was  the  commencement  of  a  period, 
not  of  prosperity,  but  of  decline.  The  rapid  influx  of  the  pre- 
cious metals,  in  the  absence  of  civil  liberty  and  of  just  prin- 


*  Speech  on  the  affairs  of  Central  America,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
21st  of  March,  1853. 


12 

-ciples  and  institutions  of  intercourse  and  industry,  was  pro- 
ductive of  manifold  evils ;  and  from  the  reign  of  Philip  the 
Second,  if  not  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  the  Spanish  monarchy 
began  to  sink  from  its  haughty  position  at  the  head  of  the 
European  family.  I  do  not  ascribe  this  downfall  exclusively 
to  the  cause  mentioned  ;  but  the  possession  of  the  two  Indies, 
with  all  their  treasures,  did  nothing  to  arrest,  accelerated  even^ 
the  progress  of  degeneracy.  Active  causes  of  decline  no 
doubt  existed  at  home :  and  of  these  the  Inquisition  was  the 

chief. 

"  There  was  the  weight  that  pulled  her  down." 

The  spirit  of  intolerance  and  persecution,  the  reproach/ and 
scandal  of  all  countries  and  all  churches,  Protestant  as  well  as 
Catholic,  (not  excepting  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  New  Eng- 
land,) found  an  instrument  in  the  Holy  Office  in  Spain,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  such  as  it  never  possessed  in  any  other 
age  or  country.  It  was  not  merely  Jews  and  heretics  whom 
it  bound  to  the  stake ;  it  kindled  a  slow,  unquenchable  fire 
in  the  heart  of  Castile  and  Leon.  The  horrid  atrocities 
practised  at  home  and  abroad,  not  only  in  the  Nether- 
lands, but  in  every  city  of  the  mother  country,  cried  to 
Heaven  for  vengeance  upon  Spain ;  nor  could  she  escape 
it.  She  intrenched  herself  behind  the  eternal  Cordilleras; 
she  took  to  herself  the  wings  of  the  morning,  and  dwelt  in 
the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea;  but  even  there  the  arm  of 
retribution  laid  hold  of  her,  and  the  wrongs  of  both  hemi- 
spheres were  avenged  in  her  degeneracy  and  fall. 

But  let  us  pass  on  to  the  next  century,  during  which  events 
of  the  utmost  consequence  followed  each  other  in  rapid  suc- 
cession, and  the  foundations  of  institutions  destined  to  influ- 
ence the  fortunes  of  Christendom  were  laid  by  humble  men/ 
who  little  comprehended  their  own  work.  In  the  course  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  the  French  and  English  took  posses- 
sion of  all  that  part  of  North  America  which  was  not  pre- 
occupied by  the  Spaniards.  The  French  entered  by  the 
St.  Lawrence;  followed  that  noble  artery  to  the  heart  of 


13 

the  continent;  traced  the  great  lakes  to  their  parent  rivulets 
and  weeping  fountains;  descended  the  Mississippi.  Mira- 
cles of  humble  and  unavailing  heroism  were  performed  by 
their  gallant  adventurers  and  pious  missionaries  in  the  depths 
of  our  Western  wilderness.  The  English  stretched  along  the 
coast.  The  geographer  would  have  pronounced  that  the 
French,  in  appropriating  to  themselves  the  mighty  basins  of 
the  Mississippi  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  had  got  possession  of 
the  better  part  of  the  continent.  But  it  was  an  attempt  to 
compose  the  second  volume  of  the  "  Fortunes  of  America," 
in  advance  of  the  first.  This  it  was  ordained  should  be 
written  at  Jamestown  and  Plymouth.  The  French,  though 
excelling  all  other  nations  of  the  world  in  the  art  of  com- 
municating for  temporary  purposes  with  savage  tribes,  seem, 
still  more  than  the  Spaniards,  to  be  destitute  of  the  august 
skill  required  to  found  new  states.*  I  do  not  know  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  in  the  world  as  a  colony  of  France 
growing  up  into  a  prosperous  commonwealth.  Half  a  mil- 
lion of  French  peasants  in  Lower  Canada,  tenaciously  ad- 
hering to  the  manners  and  customs  which  their  fathers 
brought  from  Normandy  two  centuries  ago,  and  a  third 
part  of  that  number  of  planters  of  French  descent  in  Louisi- 
ana, are  all  that  is  left  to  bear  living  witness  to  the  amazing 
fact,  that  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  France  was  the 
mistress  of  the  better  half  of  North  America. 

It  was  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  in  the  colonies  originally 
planted  or  soon  acquired  by  England,  that  the  great  work 
of  the  seventeenth  century  was  performed,  —  slowly,  toilsome- 
ly, effectively.  A  mighty  work  for  America  and  mankind,  of 
which  even  we,  fond  and  proud  of  it  as  we  are,  do  but 
faintly  guess  the  magnitude !  It  could  hardly  be  said,  at  the 
time,  to  prosper  in  any  of  its  parts.  It  yielded  no  return  to 
the  pecuniary  capital  invested.  The  political  relations  of  the 


*  "  La  France  saura  mal  coloniser  et  n'y  rcussira  qu'avec  peine."  —  Victor 
Hugo,  Le  Rhin,  Tom.  II.  p.  280. 


14 

colonies  from  the  first  were  those  of  encroachment  and  re- 
sistance ;  and  even  the  moral  principle,  as  far  as  there  was 
one,  on  which  they  were  founded,  was  not  consistently  car- 
ried out.  There  was  conflict  with  the  savages,  war  with 
the  French  and  Spaniards,  jarring  and  feud  between  neigh- 
boring colonies,  persecution  of  dissenting  individuals  and 
sects,  perpetual  discord  with  the  crown  and  the  proprieta- 
ries. Yet,  in  the  main  and  on  the  whole,  the  WORK  was 
done.  Things  that  did  not  work  singly  worked  together; 
or  if  they  did  not  work  together,  they  worked  by  reaction 
and  collision.  Feeble  germs  of  settlement  grew  to  the  con- 
sistency of  powerful  colonies ;  habits  of  civil  government 
rooted  themselves  in  a  soil  that  was  continually  stirred  by 
political  agitation ;  the  frame  of  future  republics  knit  itself, 
as  it  were  in  embryo,  under  a  monarchical  system  of  colonial 
rule ;  till  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  ap- 
proach of  mighty  changes  began  to  be  dimly  foreseen  by 
gifted  spirits.  A  faint  streak  of  purple  light  blushed  along 
the  eastern  sky. 

Two  things  worth  mentioning  contributed  to  the  result. 
One  was  the  absence  of  the  precious  metals.  The  British 
colonies  were  rich  in  the  want  of  gold.  As  the  abundance 
of  gold  and  silver  in  Mexico  and  Peru  contributed,  in  vari- 
ous ways,  to  obstruct  the  prosperity  of  the  Spanish  colonies, 
the  want  of  them  acted  not  less  favorably  here.  In  the  first 
settlement  of  a  savage  wilderness  the  golden  attraction  is  too 
powerful  for  the  ordinary  routine  of  life.  It  produces  a  fever- 
ish excitement  unfavorable  to  the  healthy  growth  and  calm 
action  of  the  body  politic.  Although  California  has  from 
the  first  had  the  advantage  of  being  incorporated  into  a 
stable  political  system,  of  which,  as  a  sister  State,  she  forms 
an  integral  part,  it  is  quite  doubtful  whether,  looking  to  her 
permanent  well-being,  the  gold  is  to  be  a  blessing  to  her. 
It  will  hasten  her  settlement;  but  that  would  at  any  rate 
have  advanced  with  great  rapidity.  One  of  the  most  in- 
tellectual men  in  this  country,  the  author  of  one  of  the  most 


15 

admirable  works  in  our  language,  I  mean  "  Two  Years  be- 
fore the  Mast,"  once  remarked  to  me,  that  "  California  would 
be  one  of  the  finest  countries  in  the  world  to  live  in,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  gold." 

The  other  circumstance  which  operated  in  the  most 
favorable  manner  upon  the  growth  of  the  Anglo-American 
colonies  was  the  fact,  that  they  were  called  into  existence 
less  by  the  government  than  the  people ;  that  they  were 
mainly  settled,  not  by  bodies  of  colonists,  but  by  individual 
immigrants.  The  crown  gave  charters  of  government  and 
grants  of  land,  and  a  considerable  expenditure  was  made 
by  some  of  the  companies  and  proprietors  who  received  these 
grants ;  but  upon  the  whole,  the  United  States  were  settled 
by  individuals,  —  the  adventurous,  resolute,  high-spirited,  and 
in  many  cases  persecuted  men  and  women,  who  sought  a 
home  and  a  refuge  beyond  the  sea ;  and  such  was  the  state 
of  Europe  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  that 
it  furnished  a  succession  of  victims  of  a  long  series  of  politi- 
cal and  religious  disasters  and  persecutions,  who  found,  one 
after  another,  a  safe  and  a  congenial  retreat  in  some  one  of 
the  American  colonies. 

This  noble  theme  has  been  treated  with  a  beauty  and  a 
power,  by  one  whom  I  need  not  name  in  this  presence,  (the 
historian  of  the  United  States,)  which,  without  impairing  their 
authenticity,  have  converted  the  severe  pages  of  our  history 
into  a  magnificent  Odyssey  of  national  adventure.  I  can 
but  glance  at  the  dates.  The  first  settlement,  that  of  Vir- 
ginia, was  commenced  in  the  spirit  of  worldly  enterprise, 
with  no  slight  dash,  however,  of  chivalry  and  romance  on 
the  part  of  its  leader.  In  the  next  generation  this  colony 
became  the  favorite  resort  of  the  loyal  cavaliers  and  gentle- 
men who  were  disgusted  by  the  austerities  of  the  English 
Commonwealth,  or  fell  under  its  suspicion.  In  the  mean 
time,  New  England  was  founded  by  those  who  suffered  the 
penalties  of  non-conformity.  The  mighty  change  of  1640 
stopped  the  tide  of  emigration  to  New  England,  but  re- 


16 

cruited  Virginia  with  those  who  were  disaffected  to  Crom- 
well. In  1624  the  island  of  Manhattan,  of  which  you  have 
perhaps  heard,  and  if  not,  you  will  find  its  history  related 
with  learning,  judgment,  and  good  taste,  by  a  loyal  descend- 
ant of  its  early  settlers  (Mr.  Brodhead),  was  purchased  of 
the  Indians  for  twenty-four  dollars ;  a  sum  of  money,  by  the 
way,  which  seems  rather  low  for  twenty-two  thousand  acres 
of  land,  including  the  site  of  this  great  metropolis,  but  which 
would,  if  put,  out  at  compound  interest  at  seven  per  cent,  in 
1624,  not  perhaps  fall  so  very  much  below  even  its  pres- 
ent value ;  though  I  admit  that  a  dollar  for  a  thousand  acres 
is  quite  cheap  for  choice  spots  on  the  Fifth  Avenue.  Mary- 
land next  attracted  those  who  adhered  to  the  ancient  faith  of 
the  Christian  world.  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  were 
mainly  settled  by  persecuted  Quakers ;  but  the  latter  offered 
an  asylum  to  the  Germans  whom  the  sword  of  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  drove  from  the  Palatinate.  The  French  Hugue- 
nots, driven  out  by  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
scattered  themselves  from  Massachusetts  to  Carolina.  The 
Dutch  and  Swedish  settlements  on  the  Hudson  and  the 
Delaware  provided  a  kindred  home  for  such  of  their  country- 
men as  desired  to  try  the  fortune  of  the  New  World.  The 
Whigs  of  England  who  rebelled  against  James  the  Second 
in  1685,  and  were  sent  to  the  Transatlantic  colonies,  lived 
long  enough  to  meet  in  exile  the  adherents  of  his  son,  who 
rebelled  against  George  the  First,  in  1715.  The  oppressed 
Protestants  of  Salzburg  came  with  General  Oglethorpe  to 
Georgia ;  and  the  Highlanders  who  foughtf  for  Charles  Ed- 
ward, in  1745,  were  deported  by  hundreds  to  North  Carolina. 
They  were  punished  by  being  sent  from  their  bleak  hills  and 
sterile  moors  to  a  land  of  abundance  and  liberty ;  they  were 
banished  from  oatmeal  porridge  to  meat  twice  a  day.  The 
Gaelic  language  is  still  spoken  by  their  descendants,  and 
thousands  of  their  kindred  at  the  present  day  would  no 
doubt  gladly  share  their  exile. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  hardships  which  awaited  the 


17 

emigrant  at  that  early  day  were  neither  few  nor  slight,  though 
greatly  exaggerated  for  want  of  information.  Goldsmith,  in 
"  The  Deserted  Village,"  published  in  1769,  gives  us  a  some- 
what amusing  picture  of  the  state  of  things  as  he  supposed  it 
to  exist  beyond  the  ocean  at  that  time.  As  his  local  allusion 
is  to  Georgia,  it  is  probable  that  he  formed  his  impressions 
from  the  accounts  which  were  published  at  London  about 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  by  some  of  the  discontented 
settlers  of  that  colony.  Goldsmith,  being  well  acquainted 
with  General  Oglethorpe,  was  likely  enough  to  have  had  his 
attention  called  to  the  subject.  Perhaps  you  will  allow  me 
to  enliven  my  dull  prose  with  a  few  lines  of  his  beautiful  po- 
etry. After  describing  the  sufferings  of  the  poor  in  London 
at  that  time,  reverting  to  the  condition  of  the  inhabitants  of 
his  imaginary  Auburn,  and  asking  whether  they  probably 
shared  the  woes  he  had  just  painted,  he  thus  answers  his 
question  :  — 

"  Ah,  no  !     To  distant  climes,  a  dreary  scene, 
Where  half  the  convex  world  intrudes  between, 
Through  torrid  tracts  with  fainting  steps  they  go, 
Where  wild  Altama  murmurs  to  their  woe. 
Far  different  there  from  all  that  charmed  before, 
The  various  terrors  of  that  horrid  shore : 
Those  blazing  suns  that  dart  a  downward  ray, 
And  fiercely  shed  intolerable  day ; 
Those  matted  woods,  where  birds  forget  to  sing, 
But  silent  bats  in  drowsy  clusters  cling ; 
Those  poisonous  fields  with  rank  luxuriance  crowned, 
Where  the  dark  scorpion  gathers  death  around, — 
Where,  at  each  step,  the  stranger  fears  to  wake 
The  rattling  terrors  of  the  vengeful  snake,  — 
Where  crouching  tigers  wait  their  hapless  prey, 
And  savage  men  more  murderous  still  than  they ; 
While  oft  in  whirls  the  mad  tornado  flies, 
Mingling  the  ravaged  landscape  with  the  skies." 

In  this  rather  uninviting  sketch,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
it  is  not  easy  to  recognize  the  natural  features  of  that  thriv- 
ing State,  which  possesses  at  the  present  day  a  thousand 
miles  of  railroad,  and  which,  by  her  rapidly  increasing  pop- 


18 

ulation,  her  liberal  endowment  of  colleges,  schools,  and 
churches,  and  all  the  other  social  institutions  of  a  highly 
improved  community,  is  fast  earning  the  name  of  the  "  Em- 
pire State  "  of  the  South. 

After  repeating  these  lines,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say 
that  there  was  much  ignorance  and  exaggeration  prevailing 
in  Europe  as  to  the  state  of  things  in  America.  But  a  few 
years  after  Goldsmith's  poem  appeared,  an  event  occurred 
which  aroused  and  fixed  the  attention  of  the  world.  The  re- 
volt of  the  Colonies  in  1775,  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
in  1776,  the  battles  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  the  alliance 
with  France,  the  acknowledgment  of  American  Independence 
by  the  treaty  of  1783,  the  establishment  of  a  great  federative 
republic,  the  illustrious  career  of  Lafayette,  the  European  rep- 
utation of  Franklin,  and,  above  all,  the  character  of  Wash- 
ington, gave  to  the  United  States  a  great  and  brilliant  name 
in  the  family  of  nations.  Thousands  in  every  part  of  Europe 
then  probably  heard  of  America,  with  any  distinct  impres- 
sions, for  the  first  time ;  and  they  now  heard  of  it  as  a  region 
realizing  the  wildest  visions.  Hundreds  in  every  walk  of  life 
began  to  resort  to  America,  and  especially  ardent  young  men, 
who  were  dissatisfied  with  the  political  condition  of  Europe. 
Among  these  was  your  late  venerable  President,  Albert  Gal- 
latin,  one  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  last  generation, 
who  came  to  this  country  before  he  attained  his  majority ; 
and  the  late  celebrated  Sir  Isambert  Brunei,  the  architect  of 
the  Thames  Tunnel.  He  informed  me  that  he  became  a  citi- 
xen  of  the  State  of  New  York  before  the  adoption  of  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution,  and  that  he  made  some  surveys  to  ascertain 
the  practicability  of  the  great  work  which  afterwards  united 
the  waters  of  Lake  Erie  with  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic,  and 
gave  immortality  to  the  name  of  your  Clinton. 

Before  the  Revolution,  the  great  West  was  shut  even  to 
the  subjects  of  England.  A  royal  proclamation  of  1763  for- 
bade the  extension  of  the  settlements  in  North  America  be- 
yond the  Ohio.  But  without  such  a  prohibition,  the  still 


19 

unbroken  power  of  the  Indian  tribes  would  have  prevented 
any  such  extension.  The  successful  result  of  the  Revolution- 
ary war  did  not  materially  alter  the  state  of  things  in  this 
respect.  The  native  tribes  were  still  formidable,  and  the  Brit- 
ish posts  in  the  Northwestern  Territory  were  retained.  So 
little  confidence  was  placed  in  the  value  of  a  title  to  land, 
even  within  the  limits  of  the  State  of  New  York,  that  the 
enterprising  citizens  of  Massachusetts,  Messrs.  Gorham  and 
Phelps,  who  bought  six  millions  of  acres  of  land  on  the  Gen- 
esee  River,  shortly  after  the  Peace,  for  a  few  cents  the  acre, 
were  obliged  to  abandon  the  greater  part  of  the  purchase  from 
the  difficulty  of  finding  under-purchasers  enough  to  enable 
them  to  meet  the  first  instalments. 

On  one  occasion,  when  Judge  Gorham  was  musing  in  a 
state  of  mental  depression  on  the  failure  of  this  magnificent 
speculation,  he  was  visited  by  a  friend  and  townsman,  who 
had  returned  from  a  journey  to  Canandaigua,.then  just  laid 
out.  This  friend  tried  to  cheer  the  Judge  with  a  bright  vis- 
ion of  the  future  growth  of  Western  New  York.  Kindling 
with  his  theme,  he  pointed  to  a  son  of  Judge  Gorham,  who 
was  in  the  room,  and  added,  "  You  and  I  shall  not  live  to  see 
the  day,  but  that  lad,  if  he  reaches  threescore  years  and  ten, 
will  see  a  daily  stage-coach  running  as  far  west  as  Canandai- 
gua!"  That  lad  is  still  living.  What  he  has  seen  in  the 
shape  of  travel  and  conveyance  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
it  is  not  necessary  before  this  audience  to  say. 

It  was  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
in  1789,  which  gave  stability  to  the  Union  and  confidence  to 
the  people.  This  was  the  Promethean  fire,  which  kindled 
the  body  politic  into  vital  action.  It  created  a  national  force. 
The  Indians  on  the  southwest  were  pacified.  On  the  north- 
western frontier  the  troops  of  the  general  government  were  at 
first  defeated ;  but  after  the  victory  of  Wayne,  and  the  peace 
of  Greeneville,  in  1795,  the  British  posts  were  surrendered, 
and  the  tide  of  emigration  began  to  pour  in.  It  was  rather, 
however,  from  the  older  States  than  from  foreign  countries. 


20 

The  extensive  region  northwest  of  the  Ohio  had  already  re- 
ceived its  political  organization  as  a  territory  of  the  United 
States  by  the  ever-memorable  Ordinance  of  1787. 

While  Providence  was  thus  opening  on  this  continent  the 
broadest  region  that  ever  was  made  accessible  to  human  prog- 
ress, want,  or  adventure,  it  happened  that  the  kingdoms  of 
Europe  were  shaken  by  the  terrible  convulsions  incident  to 
the  French  Revolution.  France  herself  first,  and  afterwards 
the  countries  overrun  by  her  revolutionary  armies,  poured 
forth  their  children  by  thousands.  I  believe  there  are  no  offi- 
cial returns  of  the  number  of  immigrants  to  the  United  States 
at  the  time,  but  it  was  very  large.  Among  them  was  M.  de 
Talleyrand,  the  celebrated  minister  of  every  government  in 
France,  from  that  of  the  Directory,  in  1797,  to  that  of  Louis 
Philippe,  in  whose  reign  he  died.  I  saw  at  Peale's  Museum, 
in  Philadelphia,  the  original  oath  of  allegiance,  subscribed  by 
him  in  1794.*  Louis  Philippe  himself  emigrated  to  this 
country,  where  he  passed  three  years,  and  is  well  remembered 
by  many  persons  still  living.  He  habitually  spoke  with  grat- 
itude of  the  kindness  which  he  experienced  in  every  part  of 
the  Union. 

As  yet,  no  acquisition  of  territory  had  been  made  by  the 
United  States  beyond  the  limits  of  the  British  colonies  ;  but 
in  1803  a  most  important  step  was  taken  in  the  purchase  of 


*  Since  this  lecture  was  delivered,  I  have  been  favored  with  a  copy  of  this 
paper  by  Edward  D.  Ingraham,  Esq.,  of  Philadelphia.  It  is  in  the  following 
words :  — 

"I,  Charles  Maurice  Talleyrand  Perigord,  formerly  Administrator  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Paris,  son  of  Joseph  Daniel  de  Talleyrand  Perigord,  a  General  of  the 
Armies  of  France,  born  at  Paris  and  arrived  at  Philadelphia  from  London,  do 
swear  that  I  will  be  faithful  and  bear  true  allegiance  to  the  Commonwealth  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  to  the  United  States  of  America,  and  that  I  will  not  at  any  time  wil- 
fully and  knowingly  do  any  matter  or  thing  prejudicial  to  the  freedom  and  inde- 
pendence thereof. 

"  CH.  MAU.  DE  TALLETRASD  PERIGORD. 
"  Sworn  the  19th  May,  1794, 

Before  MATTH.  Ci.ARK8oy.  Mayor." 


21 

Louisiana,  by  which  our  possessions  were  extended,  though 
with  an  unsettled  boundary  both  on  the  south  and  the 
north,  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  war  in  1812  reduced  the 
Indian  tribes  in  the  Northwestern  States;  and  the  campaigns 
of  General  Jackson  a  few  years  later  produced  the  same 
effect  on  the  southern  frontier.  Florida  was  acquired  by 
treaty  from  Spain  in  1819 ;  and  the  Indians  in  Georgia, 
Alabama,  and  Mississippi  were  removed  to  the  west  of  the 
river  Mississippi  ten  or  twelve  years  later.  Black  Hawk's 
war  in  Wisconsin  took  place  in  1833,  and  a  series  of  Indian 
treaties,  both  before  and  after  that  event,  extinguished  the 
Indian  title  to  all  the  land  east  of  the  Mississippi,  and  to  con- 
siderable tracts  west  of  that  river.  Texas  was  annexed  to 
the  Union  in  1845,  and  in  1848  New  Mexico  and  California 
came  into  our  possession. 

I  have,  as  you  perceive,  run  rapidly  over  these  dates,  com- 
pressing into  one  paragraph  the  starting-points  in  the  history 
of  future  commonwealths,  simply  in  their  bearing  on  the 
subject  of  immigration.  These  acquisitions,  not  inferior  in  ex- 
tent to  all  that  there  was  solid  in  the  "Roman  conquests,  have 
resulted  in  our  possession  of  a  zone  of  territory  of  the  width 
of  twenty  degrees  of  latitude,  stretching  from  ocean  to  ocean, 
and  nearly  equal  in  extent  to  the  whole  of  Europe.*  It  is  all 
subject  to  the  power  of  the  United  States  ;  a  portion  of  it  has 
attained  the  civilization  of  the  Old  World,  while  other  por- 
tions shade  off  through  all  degrees  of  culture,  to  the  log-house 
of  the  frontier  settler,  the  cabin  of  the  trapper,  and  the  wig- 
wam of  the  savage.  Within  this  vast  domain  there  are  mil- 
lions of  acres  of  fertile  land,  to  be  purchased  at  moderate 
prices,  according  to  its  position  and  its  state  of  improvement, 
and  there  are  hundreds  of  millions  of  acres  in  a  state  of 
nature,  and  gradually  selling  at  the  government  price  of  a 
dollar  and  a  quarter  per  acre. 

*  Square  miles  in  the  United  States,  3,260,073  ;  in  Europe,  3,700,971 .  —  American 
Almanac  for  1853,  pp.  315  and  316. 


22 

It  is  this  which  most  strikes  the  European  imagination. 
The  Old  World  is  nearly  all  appropriated  by  individuals. 
There  are  public  domains  in  most  foreign  countries,  but  of 
comparatively  small  amount,  and  mostly  forests.  With  this 
exception,  every  acre  of  land  in  Europe  is  private  property,  and 
in  such  countries  as  England,  the  Netherlands,  France,  Germa- 
ny, and  Italy,  what  little  changes  hands  is  sold  only  at  a  high 
price.  I  presume  the  number  of  landholders  in  England  is 
far  less  than  in  the  State  of  New  York.  In  the  course  of  the 
French  Revolution  the  land  has  been  greatly  divided  and  sub- 
divided in  France  and  in  Germany,  and  is  now  held  in  small 
farms ;  but  owing  to  the  limited  quantity  of  purchasable  land, 
these  farms,  when  sold,  are  sold  only  at  high  prices.  Gener- 
ally speaking,  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  Europe  regard 
ihe  ability  to  hold  and  occupy  a  considerable  landed  property 
as  the  summit  of  human  fortune.  The  suggestion  that  there 
is  a  country  beyond  the  ocean,  where  fertile  land  is  to  be  pur- 
chased, in  any  quantity,  at  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  per  acre, 
and  that  dollar  and  a  quarter  to  be  earned  in  many  parts  of  the 
country  by  the  labor  of  a  single  day,  strikes  them  as  the  tales 
of  Aladdin's  lamp  or  Ali  Baba's  cave  would  strike  us,  if  we 
thought  they  were  true.  They  forget  the  costs  and  sacrifices 
of  leaving  home,  the  ocean  to  be  traversed,  the  weary  pilgrim- 
age in  the  land  of  strangers  after  their  arrival.  They  see 
nothing  with  the  mind's  eye  but  the  "  land  of  promise  ";  they 
reflect  upon  nothing  but  the  fact,  that  there  is  a  region  on  the 
earth's  surface  where  a  few  days'  unskilled  labor  will  purchase 
the  fee-simple  of  an  ample  farm. 

Such  an  attraction  would  be  irresistible  under  any  circum- 
stances to  the  population  of  an  old  country,  where,  as  I  have 
just  said,  the  land  is  all  appropriated,  and  to  be  purchased, 
in  any  considerable  quantity,  only  at  prices  which  put  its 
acquisition  beyond  the  thought  of  the  masses.  But  this  is 
but  half  the  tale.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  this  ancient 
and  venerable  Europe,  whose  civilization  is  the  growth  of  two 
thousand  years,  where  some  af  the  luxurious  refinements  of 


23 

life  are  carried  to  a  perfection  of  which  we  have  scarcely  an  idea 
in  this  country,  a  considerable  part  of  the  population,  even  in 
the  most  prosperous  regions,  pass  their  lives  in  a  state  but  one 
remove  from  starvation,  —  poorly  fed,  poorly  clothed,  poorly 
housed,  without  education,  without  political  privileges,  with- 
out moral  culture.  The  average  wages  of  the  agricultural 
laborer  in  England  were  estimated  a  year  ago  at  9s.  6d.  ster- 
ling —  about  $  2.37£  —  per  week.  The  condition  of  the  work- 
ing population  on  the  continent  of  Europe  is  in  no  degree 
better,  if  as  good.  They  eat  but  little  animal  food  either  in 
England  or  on  the  Continent.  We  form  romantic  notions  at  a 
distance  of  countries  that  abound  in  wine  and  oil ;  but  in  the 
best  governed  states  of  Italy,  —  in  Tuscany,  for  instance,  —  the 
peasantry,  though  they  pass  their  lives  in  the  vineyard  and  the 
olive-orchard,  consume  the  fruit  of  neither.  I  have  seen  the 
Tuscan  peasants,  unable  to  bear  the  cost  of  the  most  ordinary 
wine  from  the  vineyards  in  which  their  cottages  are  embow- 
ered, and  which  can  be  bought  at  retail  for  a  cent  a  flask,  pour- 
ing water  over  the  grape-skins  as  they  come  from  the  press, 
and  making  that  their  beverage. 

Even  for  persons  in  comparatively  easy  circumstances  in 
Europe,  there  are  strong  inducements  to  emigrate  to  America. 
Most  of  the  governments  are  arbitrary,  the  taxes  are  oppres- 
sive, the  exactions  of  military  service  onerous  in  the  extreme. 
Add  to  all  this  the  harassing  insecurity  of  life.  For  sixty 
or  seventy  years  the  Continent  has  been  one  wide  theatre  of 
scarcely  intermitted  convulsion.  Every  country  in  it  has  been 
involved  in  war ;  there  is  scarcely  one  that  has  not  passed 
through  a  revolution.  We  read  of  events  like  these  in  the 
newspapers,  we  look  upon  them  with  curiosity  as  articles  of 
mere  intelligence,  or  they  awaken  images  of  our  own  revolu- 
tion, which  we  regard  only  with  joyous  associations.  Far  dif- 
ferent the  state  of  things  in  crowded  Europe,  of  which  the  fair- 
est fields  are  trampled  in  every  generation  by  mighty  armies 
into  bloody  mire !  Dazzled  by  the  brilliancy  of  the  military 
exploits  of  which  we  read  at  a  safe  distance,  we  forget  the 


24 

anxieties  of  those  who  grow  up  within  the  sound  of  the  can- 
non's roar,  whose  prospects  in  life  are  ruined,  their  business 
broken  up,  their  little  accumulations  swept  away  by  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  governments  or  the  general  paralysis  of  the  industry 
of  the  country,  their  sons  torn  from  them  by  ruthless  conscrip- 
tions, the  means  of  educating  and  bringing  up  their  families 
consumed  in  a  day  by  disastrous  emergencies.  Terrified  by 
the  recent  experience  or  the  tradition  of  these  miseries,  thou- 
sands emigrate  to  the  land  of  promise,  flying  before,  not 
merely  the  presence,  but  the  '-'  rumor  of  war,"  which  the  Great 
Teacher  places  on  a  level  with  the  reality. 

Ever  and  anon  some  sharp  specific  catastrophe  gives  an  in- 
tense activity  to  emigration.  When  France,  in  the  lowest 
depth  of  her  Revolution,  plunged  to  a  lower  depth  of  suffering 
and  crime,  when  the  Reign  of  Terror  was  enthroned,  and  when 
every  thing  in  any  way  conspicuous,  whether  for  station, 
wealth,  talent,  or  service,  of  every  age  and  of  either  sex,  from 
the  crowned  monarch  to  the  gray-haired  magistrate  and  the 
timid  maiden,  was  brought  to  the  guillotine,  hundreds  of 
thousands  escaped  at  once  from  the  devoted  kingdom.  The 
convulsions  of  San  Domingo  drove  most  of  the  European 
population  of  that  island  to  the  United  States.  But  be- 
yond every  thing  else  which  has  been  witnessed  in  modern 
times,  the  famine  which  prevailed  a  few  years  since  in  Ireland 
gave  a  terrific  impulse  to  emigration.  Not  less,  probably, 
than  one  million  of  her  inhabitants  left  her  shores  within  five 
years.  The  population  of  this  island,  as  highly  favored  in  the 
gifts  of  nature  as  any  spot  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  has  actu- 
ally diminished  more  than  1,800,000  since  the  famine  year ;  * 
the  only  example,  perhaps,  in  history,  of  a  similar  result  in  a 
country  not  visited  by  foreign  war  or  civil  convulsion.  The 
population  ought,  in  the  course  of  nature,  to  have  increased 
within  ten  years  by  at  least  that  amount ;  and  in  point  of  fact, 
between  1840  and  1850,  our  own  population  increased  by 
more  than  six  millions. 


*  London  Quarterly  Renew  for  December,  1851,  p.  191. 


25 

This  prodigious  increase  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States  is  partly  owing  to  the  emigration  from  foreign  coun- 
tries, which  has  taken  place  under  the  influence  of  the  causes 
general  and  specific,  to  which  I  have  alluded.  Of  late  years, 
from  three  to  four  hundred  thousand  immigrants  are  registered 
at  the  several  custom-houses,  as  arriving  in  this  country  in  the 
course  of  a  year.  It  is  probable  that  a  third  as  many  more 
enter  by  the  Canadian  frontier.  Not  much  less  than  two 
millions  of  immigrants  are  supposed  to  have  entered  the 
United  States  in  the  last  ten  years;  and  it  is  calculated  that 
there  are  living  at  the  present  day  in  the  United  States  five 
millions  of  persons,  foreigners  who  have  immigrated  since 
1790,  and  their  descendants. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  annals  of  mankind  to  be  compared 
to  this  ;  but  there  is  a  series  of  great  movements  which  may 
be  contrasted  with  it.  In  the  period  of  a  thousand  years, 
which  began  about  three  or  four  hundred  years  before  our 
Saviour,  the  Roman  republic  and  empire  were  from  time  to 
time  invaded  by  warlike  races  from  the  North  and  East,  who 
burst  with  overwhelming  force  upon  the  South  and  West  of 
Europe,  and  repeatedly  carried  desolation  to  the  gates  of 
Rome.  These  multitudinous  invaders  were  not  armies  of 
men,  they  were  in  reality  nations  of  hostile  emigrants.  They 
came  with  their  wives,  with  their  "  young  barbarians,"  with 
their  Scythian  cavalry,  and  their  herds  of  cattle ;  and  they 
came  with  no  purpose  of  going  away.  The  animus  manendi 
was  made  up  before  they  abandoned  their  ice-clad  homes ; 
they  left  their  Arctic  allegiance  behind  them.  They  found 
the  sunny  banks  of  the  Arno  and  the  Rhone  more  pleasant 
than  those  of  the  Don  and  the  Volga.  Unaccustomed  to  the 
sight  of  any  tree  more  inviting  than  the  melancholy  fir  and 
the  stunted  birch,  its  branches  glittering  with  snowy  crystals, — 
brought  up  under  a  climate  where  the  generous  fruits  are  un- 
known, —  these  children  of  the  North  were  not  so  much  fasci- 
nated as  bewildered  "  in  the  land  of  the  citron  and  myrtle  " ; 
they  gazed  with  delighted  astonishment  at  the  spreading  elm, 
4 


26 

festooned  with  Falernian  clusters  ;  they  clutched,  with  a  kind 
of  frantic  joy,  at  the  fruit  of  the  fig-tree  and  the  olive  ;  — 
at  the  melting  peach,  the  luscious  plum,  the  golden  orange, 
and  the  pomegranate,  whose  tinted  cheek  outblushes  every 
thing  but  the  living  carnation  of  youthful  love. 

"  With  grim  delight  the  brood  of  winter  view 
A  brighter  day  and  heavens  of  azure  hue, 
Scent  the  new  fragrance  of  the  breathing  rose, 
And  quaff  the  pendent  vintage  as  it  grows." 

By  the  fortune  of  war,  single  detachments  and  even  mighty 
armies  frequently  suffered  defeat;  but  their  place  was  imme- 
diately taken  by  new  hordes,  which  fell  upon  declining  Rome 
as  the  famished  wolves  in  one  of  Catlin's  pictures  fall  upon 
an  aged  buffalo  in  our  Western  prairies.  The  imperial  mon- 
ster, powerful  even  in  his  decrepitude,  would  often  scatter  their 
undisciplined  array  with  his  iron  tusks,  and  trample  them  by 
thousands  under  his  brazen  feet ;  but  when  he  turned  back, 
torn  and  bleeding,  to  his  seven  hills,  tens  of  thousands  came 
howling  from  the  Northern  forests,  who  sprang  at  his  throat 
and  buried  their  fangs  in  his  lacerated  side.  Wherever  they 
conquered,  and  in  the  end  they  conquered  everywhere,  they 
established  themselves  on  the  soil,  invited  new-comers,  and 
from  their  union  with  the  former  inhabitants,  the  nations  of 
the  South  and  West  of  Europe,  at  the  present  day,  for  the 
most  part,  trace  their  descent. 

We  know  but  little  of  the  numbers  thus  thrown  in  upon 
the  Roman  republic  and  empire  in  the  course  of  eight  or  ten 
centuries.  They  were,  no  doubt,  greatly  exaggerated  by  the 
panic  fear  of  the  inhabitants;  and  the  pride  of  the  Roman 
historians  would  lead  them  to  magnify  the  power  before 
which  their  own  legions  had  so  often  quailed.  But  when  we 
consider  the  difficulty  of  subsisting  a  large  number  of  per- 
sons in  a  march  through  an  unfriendly  country,  and  this  at 
a  time  when  much  of  the  now  cultivated  portion  of  Europe 
was  covered  with  forest  and  swamp,  I  am  disposed  to  think 
that  the  hosts  which  for  a  succession  of  centuries  overran 


27 

the  Roman  empire  did  not  in  the  aggregate  exceed  in  num- 
bers the  immigrants  that  have  arrived  in  the  United  States 
since  1790.  In  other  words,  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  that 
within  the  last  sixty  years  the  Old  World  has  poured  in  upon 
the  United  States  a  number  of  persons  as  great,  with  their 
natural  increase,  as  Asia  sent  into  Europe  in  these  armed 
migrations  of  barbarous  races. 

Here,  of  course,  the  parallel  ends.  The  races  that  invaded 
Europe  came  to  lay  waste  and  to  subjugate ;  the  hosts  that 
cross  the  Atlantic  are  peaceful  immigrants.  The  former 
burst  upon  the  Roman  empire,  and  by  oft-repeated  strokes 
beat  it  to  the  ground.  The  immigrants  to  America  from  all 
countries  come  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  native  citizens, 
and  to  share  with  us  this  great  inheritance  of  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty.  The  former  were  ferocious  barbarians,  half 
clad  in  skins,  speaking  strange  tongues,  worshipping  strange 
gods  with  bloody  rites.  The  latter  are  the  children  of  the 
countries  from  which  the  first  European  settlers  of  this  con- 
tinent proceeded,  and  belong,  with  us,  to  the  great  common 
family  of  Christendom.  The  former  destroyed  the  culture 
of  the  ancient  world,  and  it  was  only  after  a  thousand  years 
that  a  better  civilization  grew  up  from  its  ruins.  The  mil- 
lions who  have  established  themselves  in  America  within 
sixty  years  are,  from  the  moment  of  their  arrival,  gradually 
absorbed  into  the  mass  of  the  population,  conforming  to  the 
laws  and  moulding  themselves  to  the  manners  of  the  country, 
and  contributing  their  share  to  its  prosperity  and  strength. 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence,  that,  as  the  first  mighty  wave 
of  the  hostile  migration  that  burst  upon  Europe  before  the 
time  of  our  Saviour  consisted  of  tribes  belonging  to  the 
great  Celtic  race,  the  remains  of  which,  identified  by  their 
original  dialect,  are  still  found  in  Brittany,  in  Wales,  in  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland,  and  especially  in  Ireland,  so  by  far 
the  greater  portion  of  the  new  and  friendly  immigration  to 
the  United  States  consists  of  persons  belonging  to  the  same 
ardent,  true-hearted,  and  too  often  oppressed  race.  I  have 


heard,  in  the  villages  of  Wales  and  the  Highlands  of  Scotland, 
the  Gospel  preached  in  substantially  the  same  language  in 
which  Brennus  uttered  his  haughty  summons  to  Rome,  and 
in  which  the  mystic  songs  of  the  Druids  were  chanted  in 
the  depths  of  the  primeval  forests  of  France  and  England, 
in  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar.  It  is  still  spoken  by  thousands 
of  Scotch,  Welsh,  and  Irish  immigrants,  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  States.* 

This  great  Celtic  race  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  that 
has  appeared  in  history.  Whether  it  belongs  to  that  ex- 
tensive Indo-European  family  of  nations,  which,  in  ages  be- 
fore the  dawn  of  history,  took  up  a  line  of  march  in  two 
columns  from  Lower  India,  and,  moving  westward  by  both  a 
northern  and  a  southern  route,  finally  diffused  itself  over 
Western  Asia,  Northern  Africa,  and  the  greater  part  of  Eu- 
rope ;  or  whether,  as  others  suppose,  the  Celtic  race  belongs 

*  A  learned  and  friendly  correspondent,  of  Welsh  origin,  is  of  opinion  that  I 
have  fallen  into  a  "  gross  error,  in  classing  the  Irish,  Welsh,  and  Scotch  as  one 
race  of  people,  or  Celts,  whose  language  is  the  same.  The  slightest  acquaintance," 
he  adds,  "  with  the  Welsh  and  Irish  languages  would  convince  you  that  they  were 
totally  different.  A  Welshman  cannot  understand  one  word  of  Irish,  neither  tan 
the  latter  understand  one  word  of  Welsh." 

In  a  popular  view  of  the  subject  this  may  be  correct,  in  like  manner  as  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  the  Teutonic,  and  Scandinavian  races  would,  in  a  popular  use  of  the 
terms,  be  considered  as  distinct  races,  speaking  languages  mutually  unintelligible. 
But  the  etymologist  regards  their  languages  as  substantially  the  same ;  and  ethno- 
graphically  these  nations  belong  to  one  and  the  same  stock. 

There  are  certainly  many  points,  in  reference  to  the  ancient  history  of  the  Celts, 
on  which  learned  men  greatly  differ,  and  at  which  it  was  impossible  that  I  should 
even  glance  in  the  superficial  allusions  which  my  limits  admitted.  But  there  is  no 
point  on  which  ethnographers  are  better  agreed,  than  that  the  Bretons,  Welsh, 
Irish,  and  Highland  Scotch  belong  to  the  Celtic  race,  representing,  no  doubt,  differ- 
ent national  families,  which  acquired  each  its  distinctive  dialect  at  a  very  early 
period. 

Dr.  Prichard  (the  leading  authority  on  questions  of  this  kind),  after  comparing 
the  remains  of  the  ancient  Celtic  language,  as  far  as  they  can  now  be  traced  in 
proper  names,  says :  '  We  must  hence  conclude  that  the  dialect  of  the  ancient 
Gauls  was  nearly  allied  to  the  Welsh,  and  much  more  remotely  related  to  the  Erse 
and  Gaelic.''  —  Researches  into  t/te  Physical  History  of  Mankind,  Vol.  III.  p.  135. 
See  al.so  Latham's  English  iMnguage.  p.  74. 


29 

to  a  still  older  stock,  and  was  itself  driven  down  upon  the 
South  and  into  the  West  of  Europe  by  the  overwhelming 
force  of  the  Indo-Europeans,  is  a  question  which  we  have  no 
time  at  present  to  discuss.  However  it  may  be  decided,  it 
would  seem  that  for  the  first  time,  as  far  as  we  are  acquainted 
with  the  fortunes  of  this  interesting  race,  they  have  found 
themselves  in  a  really  prosperous  condition  in  this  country. 
Driven  from  the  soil  in  the  West  of  Europe,  to  which  their 
fathers  clung  for  two  thousand  years,  they  have  at  length, 
and  for  the  first  time  in  their  entire  history,  found  a  real 
home  in  a  land  of  strangers.  Having  been  told,  in  the 
frightful  language  of  political  economy,  that  at  the  daily 
table  which  Nature  spreads  for  the  human  family  there  is 
no  cover  laid  for  them  in  Ireland,  they  have  crossed  the 
ocean,  tp  find  occupation,  shelter,  and  bread  on  a  foreign 
but  friendly  soil. 

This  "  Celtic  Exodus,"  as  it  has  been  aptly  called,  is  to 
all  the  parties  immediately  connected  with  it  one  of  the  most 
important  events  of  the  day.  To  the  emigrants  themselves 
it  may  be  regarded  as  a  passing  from  death  to  life.  It  will 
benefit  Ireland  by  reducing  a  surplus  population,  and  restor- 
ing a  sounder  and  juster  relation  of  capital  and  labor.  It 
will  benefit  the  laboring  classes  in  England,  where  wages 
have  been  kept  down  to  the  starvation-point  by  the  struggle 
between  the  native  population  and  the  inhabitants  of  the 
sister  island  for  that  employment  and  food,  of  which  there 
is  not  enough  for  both.  This  benefit  will  extend  from 
England  to  ourselves,  and  will  lessen  the  pressure  of  that 
competition  which  our  labor  is  obliged  to  sustain,  with  the 
ill-paid  labor  of  Europe.  In  addition  to  all  this,  the  constant 
influx  into  America  of  stout  and  efficient  hands  supplies 
the  greatest  want  in  a  new  country,  which  is  that  of  labor, 
gives  value  to  land,  and  facilitates  the  execution  of  every 
species  of  private  enterprise  and  public  work. 

I  am  not  insensible  to  the  temporary  inconveniences  which 
are  to  be  offset  against  these  advantages,  on  both  sides  of  the 


•; 


30 

water.  Much  suffering  attends  the  emigrant  there,  on  his 
passage,  and  after  his  arrival.  It  is  possible  that  the  value 
of  our  native  labor  may  have  been  depressed  by  too  sudden 
and  extensive  a  supply  from  abroad ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
our  asylums  and  almshouses  are  crowded  with  foreign  in- 
mates, and  that  the  resources  of  public  and  private  benevo- 
lence have  been  heavily  drawn  upon.  These  are  considera- 
ble evils,  but  they  have  perhaps  been  exaggerated. 

It  must  be  remembered,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  immi- 
gration daily  pouring  in  from  Europe  is  by  no  means  a  pauper 
immigration.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  already  regarded  with 
apprehension  abroad,  as  occasioning  a  great  abstraction  of 
capital.  How  the  case  may  be  in  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, I  have  seen  no  precise  •  statement ;  but  it  is  asserted  on 
apparently  good  grounds,  that  the  consumption  and  abstrac- 
tion of  capital  caused  by  immigration  from  Germany  amounts 
annually  to  twenty  millions  of  rix-dollars,  or  fifteen  millions 
of  our  currency.* 

No  doubt,  foreign  immigation  is  attended  with  an  influx 
of  foreign  pauperism.  In  reference  to  this,  I  believe  your 
system  of  public  relief  is  better  here  in  New  York  than  ours 
in  Massachusetts,  in  which,  however,  we  are  making  impor- 
tant changes.  It  is  said,  that,  owing  to  some  defect  in  our 
system,  or  its  administration,  we  support  more  than  our 
share  of  needy  foreigners.  They  are  sent  in  upon  us  from 
other  States.  New  York,  as  the  greatest  seaport,  must  be 
exposed  also  to  more  than  her  proportionate  share  of  the 
burden.  However  the  evil  arises,  it  may  no  doubt  be  miti- 
gated by  judicious  legislation;  and  in  the  mean  time  Massa- 
chusetts and  New  York  might  do  a  worse  thing  with  a  por- 

*  In  an  instructive  article  relative  to  the  German  emigration  in  Otto  IlQbner's 
Jahrbuch  far  Volkswirthschaft  und  Statistik,  the  numbers  who  emigrated  from 
Germany,  from  1846  to  1851  inclusive,  are  estimated  to  have  amounted  to  an 
annual  average  of  96,676,  and  the  amount  of  capital  abstracted  by  them  from  the 
country  to  an  average  of  19,370,333  rix-dollars  (about  fifteen  million  Spanish 
dollars)  per  annum. 


31 

tion  of  their  surplus  means  than  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the 
naked,  give  a  home  to  the  stranger,  and  kindle  the  spark  of 
reason  in  the  mind  of  the  poor  foreign  lunatic,  even  though 
that  lunatic  may  have  been  (as  I  am  ashamed,  for  the 
credit  of  humanity,  to  say  has  happened)  set  on  shore  in 
the  night  from  a  coasting-vessel,  and  found  in  the  morning 
in  the  fields,  half  dead  with  cold,  and  hunger,  and  fright. 

But  you  say,  "  They  are  foreigners."  Well,  do  we  owe  no 
duties  to  foreigners  ?  What  was  the  founder  of  Virginia, 
when  a  poor  Indian  girl  threw  herself  between  him  and  the 
war-club  of  her  father,  and  saved  his  life  at  the  risk  of  her 
own  ?  What  were  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  when  the  friendly 
savage,  if  we  must  call  him  so,  met  them  with  his  little  vocab- 
ulary of  kindness,  learned  among  the  fishermen  on  the  Grand 
Bank,  —  "  Welcome,  Englishmen  "  ?  "  They  are  foreigners." 
And  suppose  they  are  ?  Was  not  the  country  all  but  ready, 
a  year  or  two  ago,  to  plunge  into  a  conflict  with  the  military 
despotisms  of  the  East  of  Europe,  in  order  to  redress  the 
wrongs  of  the  oppressed  races  who  feed  their  flocks  on  the 
slopes  of  the  Carpathians,  and  pasture  their  herds  upon  the 
tributaries  of  the  Danube,  and  do  we  talk  of  the  hardship 
of  relieving  destitute  foreigners,  whom  the  hand  of  God  has 
guided  across  the  ocean  and  conducted  to  our  doors  ? 

Must  we  learn  a  lesson  of  benevolence  from  the  ancient 
heathen  ?  Let  us  then  learn  it.  The  whole  theatre  at  Rome 
stood  up  and  shouted  their  sympathetic  applause,  when  the 
actor  in  one  of  Terence's  plays  exclaimed,  "  I  am  a  man  ; 
nothing  that  is  human  is  foreign  to  me." 

I  am  not  indifferent  to  the  increase  of  the  public  burdens ; 
but  the  time  has  been  when  I  have  felt  a  little  proud  of  the 
vast  sums  paid  in  the  United  States  for  the  relief  of  poor 
immigrants  from  Europe.  It  is  an  annual  sum,  I  have  no 
doubt,  equal  to  the  interest  on  the  foreign  debt  of  the  States 
which  have  repudiated  their  obligations.  When  I  was  in 
London,  a  few  years  ago,  I  received  a  letter  from  one  of  the 
interior  counties  of  England,  telling  me  that  they  had  in  their 


32 

house  of  correction  an  American  seaman,  (or  a  person  who 
pretended  to  be,)  who  from  their  account  seemed  to  be  both 
pauper  and  rogue.  They  were  desirous  of  being  rid  of  him, 
and  kindly  offered  to  place  him  at  my  disposal.  Although 
he  did  not  bid  fair  to  be  a  very  valuable  acquisition,  I  wrote 
back  that  he  might  be  sent  to  London,  where,  if  he  was  a 
sailor,  he  could  be  shipped  by  the  American  Consul  to  the 
United  States,  if  not,  to  be  disposed  of  in  some  other  way.  I 
ventured  to  add  the  suggestion,  that  if  her  Majesty's  Minister 
at  Washington  were  applied  to  in  a  similar  way  by  the  over- 
seers of  the  poor  and  wardens  of  the  prisons  in  the  United 
States,  he  would  be  pretty  busily  occupied.  But  I  really  felt 
pleased,  at  a  time  when  my  own  little  State  of  Massachusetts 
was  assisting  from  ten  to  twelve  thousand  destitute  British 
subjects  annually,  to  be  able  to  relieve  the  British  empire,  on 
which  the  sun  never  sets,  of  the  only  American  pauper  quar- 
tered upon  it. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  my  humble  tale  is  told.  In  thank- 
ing you  for  your  most  kind  attention,  let  me  remind  you  that 
its  first  incident  is  Columbus,  begging  bread  for  his  child  at 
the  gate  of  a  convent.  Its  last  finds  you  the  stewards  of  this 
immense  abundance,  the  almoners  of  this  more  than  imperial 
charity,  providing  employment  and  food  for  starving  nations, 
and  a  home  for  fugitive  races. 


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